Shaowen Mao

Senior Computational Scientist

[email protected]

Shaowen Mao is a Senior Computational Scientist at ResFrac Corporation.

Before joining ResFrac, Shaowen was a Staff Scientist in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). He holds a Ph.D. in Petroleum Engineering from Texas A&M University, where he was honored with the Faculty Award of Excellence, and previously served as a University of California/Los Alamos Entrepreneurial Postdoctoral Fellow at LANL.

His research focuses on energy resources science and engineering, with expertise spanning geothermal energy, hydrocarbon development, underground hydrogen storage, carbon sequestration, and geologic hydrogen production. Dr. Mao specializes in developing and applying advanced computational techniques, including multi-physics simulations and machine learning, to tackle complex problems involving coupled Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical-Chemical processes in various subsurface systems. His work contributes to advancing sustainable energy solutions and understanding subsurface processes critical to energy and environmental challenges.

Click here for a list of Shaowen’s publications, or to learn more about his research.

Shaowen's posts

Advanced ‘proppant transport in the well’ capabilities are now implemented in ResFrac!

Proppant transport in the well is an intriguing topic that has attracted a lot of interest in recent years [1-8]. Proppant transport processes determine the uniformity of proppant placement, which has a direct impact on productivity. Cipolla et al. estimate that the difference between poor and excellent proppant uniformity is about $2.5M in net present value per well.

Digesting the Bonkers, Incredible, Off-the-Charts, Spectacular Results from the Fervo and FORGE Enhanced Geothermal Projects

I’m out of superlatives – I used them all up in the title. But seriously – Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) projects have had a really, really good summer. In this article, I summarize the results that have been recently presented by Fervo and FORGE. At their annual Tech Day and in a white paper posted this week (Norbeck et al., 2024), Fervo Energy provided their first update on Project Cape, a Utah project where they are developing 400 MWe of new production over the next two years. So far, fourteen wells have been drilled, and three of them have been stimulated.

What ‘company culture’ means to us

We recently held our annual company retreat. This is an important event because we are a fully remote company, and it gives us the chance to get together in-person and spend quality time. This year, we did the retreat in Houston, following URTeC and our annual symposium. We visited Space Center Houston, went to an Astros game, and ate BBQ and Tex-Mex. As a Houston native, I picked some of my favorite things to do in town! We also held a meeting on ‘company culture.’ I asked the group – how do you perceive our company culture? What do we do well, and what could we do better? Here are the highlights.